Welcome to the myVocs Box login project

The login project covers the work to handle the login interface for myvocs box. The mVb login service provides a central login service for the VO applications supported by an instance of mVb. The login service is familiar to all system environments and generally a central implementation as a convenience to applications.

The point of the mVb login service is to support the login process for the mVb federated system environment. The login in process internals are implemented by Shibboleth and the login service can essentially be viewed as the web-based UI for this process. In Shibboleth terms, this process includes IdP discover and is conceptually described as a WAYF service. mVb login includes WAYF functionality and supports session management configuration settings and status.

The foundation for this implementation comes from the SWITCH WAYF implementation. The SWITCH WAYF was chosen over the default WAYF services of Shibboleth for a number of reasons:

  • it's a stand-alone service: it can be maintained and improved separately from Shibboleth
  • implemented in PHP: a lower barrier to entry for customization, offers opportunities for integration
  • has some interesting features: IdP pre-selection, session management

There are some downsides which are the target of the improvements in the local modifications:

  • it's too generic of a WAYF service: mVb is looking for a login service with WAYF features
  • it's UI is geared to the WAYF concept
  • we need more customizations to the preferred IdP configuration

Basicly the mVb login service extensions are designed to support:

  • "one-click" login: the user should be presented with a reasonable set of IdPs and be allowed to select and configure the list to their preferences
  • preferences should be sharable across browsers: just simple cookie migration similar to what out-of-the-box Trac does
  • UI customization improvements to reflect a "login" rather than WAYF concept
  • integration with other services of mVb: login status, cert requesting
  • likely some things that haven't been thought of yet

The motivation for maintaining this as a mVb project is to make sharing the ideas of the login service easer and allowing others to contribute to or critique the approach.

This site will basically manage the code modification as all Trac sites do and the wiki is an easy place to integrate code commentary with the repository, given the wiki's ability to hook into bugs and code with easy short-cut references.

The site currently contains:

For help with trac read the documentation.